Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (7 page)

“Hey,” Jazz
said,
her
hands in the air, “I was just telling you what I heard.”

“And I’m just telling you what you heard isn’t
true.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jazz said with a grin.
 
“I guess when you’re in love it’s always
easier to play dumb.”

“I guess so,” Trina said strongly, although
she felt hurt inside.
 
She knew Jazz had
her bad side, and she also knew she could never do business with a woman like
her, but she was just trying to hold onto her friendship.
 
The only female friend she had.
 
Now, she realized, that was going to be impossible.
 
Jazz didn’t care for Reno when Reno, in
truth, was Trina’s life.
 
She should have
left it alone.
 
Coming here, she now
realized, was a mistake.

The sudden tenseness was interrupted, to both
their relief, when Boyzie walked over.
 
“Hello, there, Mrs. Gabrini,” he said as he came.
 
“You’re looking very prosperous tonight.”

It took some effort, but Trina managed to
smile.
 
“Hello, yourself, Boyzie.
 
You’re still working these girls too hard?”

“A man’s got to earn a living.
 
Hit the stage, Jazz,” he added.
 
Then he smiled, as Jazz began to get up.
 
“Care to join her?”

Trina was surprised.
 
“Join her?
 
What do you mean?”

“I strip now,” Jazz said without
hesitation.
 
“Can you wait until after my
set?
 
It won’t take long.”
 
Then the dagger: “Or are you too busy?”

Again, Trina felt on the spot.
 
But she wasn’t about to let Jazz get under
her skin any more than she already had.
 
“Actually, I do have to leave,” she said, standing too.

Jazz stared at her.
 
For the first time since her arrival, Trina
could clearly see the resentment.

“Have a safe trip,” Jazz said, and then
left.
 

And Trina knew, as she was leaving too, that
there was nothing, nothing at all, that was left to be said.

In the board room on the top floor of the
PaLargio Hotel and Casino, Reno sat at the head of the table.
 
Sitting at his left and right
were
Lee Jones, his African-American general manager, and
Cheri Dallas, the tall, blonde, former manager at Caesar’s Palace and the
female he wanted as GM when the board approved Lee’s promotion.

Reno listened and listened to the board’s
objections.
 
The board was majority older,
white, and male, with one black male and two white women, and there was
dissension in the ranks.
 
The majority
refused to approve Lee Jones and you could cut the tension with a knife.

Finally, it was Reno’s time.
 
“I’ll make this short and sweet,” Reno
said.
 
“I’ve sat here and heard
everything you had to say.
 
I’ve heard
hours of what you had to say.
 
But now I
need to make myself crystal clear.
 
I
called this meeting to make certain that I fully hear your complaints and
hesitations, but it’s time for you to hear mine.
 
I want you to hear it directly from me and me
alone.
 
You say you don’t want Lee at the
helm because he doesn’t have the breadth of experience you would like, although
he has great experience here at the PaLargio, which is where it counts.
 
You say you don’t want Cheri because you
heard some rumor somewhere that I was fuck . . . that I have a sexual
relationship with her and that’ll make her bad for business.
 
Did I sum up your objections accurately?” he
asked his board.
 

When they all nodded, he continued.
 
“First of all,” he said, “I am not having an
affair with Cheri, sexual or otherwise.
 
She’s a fine woman, a beautiful woman, but I have a wife.
 
So there’s no earthly reason for her
nomination to be squashed.
 
Second of
all, since some of you have forgotten, I am the chairman of this board of
directors and I am still the owner of the PaLargio.
 
So when I say that I want Lee Jones to be my
new CEO, and that I am stepping down from the day to day operations of this
place, I mean what I say.
 
I didn’t say
it for you to debate the matter.
 
I
didn’t say it for you to criticize the matter.
 
I said it for you to approve the matter.
 
That’s the only answer to this question.
 
Lee Jones will be my new CEO and Cheri will replace Lee as my new GM.”

Reno stood up, his muscular frame straining
the fabric of his smoky gray, double-breasted Italian silk suit.
 
The stressfulness of the day was beginning to
betray him.
 
“Now,” he said, “I will ask
the question again.”

The board’s staunchest critics seemed ready to
object again.
 
Reno saw it.
 
“Before you answer the question, however, I
want to make it clear: if you still have problems with my selection as CEO then
you will be resigning tonight.
 
Because with or without you, Lee Jones will be the new CEO of the
PaLargio.”

There was a pause as Reno could see a little
less fight in those who were ready to continue the fight.
 
“Now,” he said, “I put the question on the
table.
 
By a show of hands, I want to
know who is in favor of Leonard Jones becoming the new chief executive officer
of the PaLargio Hotel and Casino, and Cheri Dallas taking his place as
GM?
 
Show of hands, ladies and gentlemen.”

The first vote had been a split decision, with
the majority voting against Lee and Cheri.
 
That vote was cast in Reno’s absence, as he had assumed it to be a mere
formality.
 
But when he realized he had a
little mutiny on his hands, he left the other meetings that had him bogged down
in details and came to the board room.
 
Now, as he looked at his directors, every hand was in the air, affirming
the promotions.

Reno wanted to clobber each and every one of
them. He couldn’t pick up his wife from the airport because of their
intransigence.
 
And just like that, with
the threat of stripping them of power the way they had wanted to strip Lee,
they were back on board.

Reno, Lee, and Cheri left the room.

“As easy as that?”
Cheri asked as they walked along the
corridor.

“When it’s their asses on the line?” Reno
asked.
 
“Oh yeah.
 
Real easy.”
 

But as soon as they turned the corner, and he
saw Dirty standing by a water cooler chatting it up with some female, he
extended his arms and shrugged his shoulders.
 
“Where’s Tree?” he asked him in that bombastic Reno style.

Dirty’s heart pounded when he heard Reno’s
voice.
 
“Get lost,” he said to the female
standing beside him, and then began walking toward Reno.

“What you mean where is she?” he asked.
 
“I dropped her off at the private
entrance.
 
She asked me to drop her off
at the private entrance.”

“So what’s your problem?”

“My problem?”
Dirty asked, offended by the question.
 
The two men, along with Lee and Cheri, were
now toe to toe.
 
And both men had those
strong, Jersey-bred, Italian accents.
 
“I
don’t have
no
problem.”

“Oh, yes you do if you think for a second that
it’s okay to take my wife to that hellhole strip joint.
 
I specifically told you to bring her straight
home.
 
You have a severe problem if you
think that’s not a problem.”

“Why are you talking to me like that,
Reno?
 
I called and told you what was
up.
  
She told me to take her there.”

“But what did I tell you?” Reno asked.
 
“Not what somebody else told you, what the
fuck did I tell you?”
 
Cheri seemed taken
aback by Reno’s language.
 
“What did I
say,
Dirty
?”

Reno was in his face.
 
Dirty wanted to kick his ass, but knew he
couldn’t.
 
“You told me to bring her
straight home. I know what you told me to do.”

“Is Boyzie’s my home?
Hun,
dickhead?
 
What part of Boyzie’s
is my home?”

“It was just a little side trip, Reno.
 
It wasn’t like I took her to another country
or something.
 
She wanted to say bye to
Jazz.
 
She didn’t stay in that place ten
minutes.”

“And what the fuck difference does that
make?
 
Anything could have happened in
those ten minutes and you know it!
 
You
asked me to give you more responsibility---”

“More responsibility running the company,
Reno.
 
But you make me a bodyguard?
 
What
kind of more responsibility is that?”

“You were body-guarding my wife, you asshole!”
Reno said angrily as he pushed his finger into Dirty’s chest.
  
“There isn’t a more responsible job I could
have given you!”

Reno knew he had to calm down.
 
Although Lee found his bombastic style
amusing, Cheri’s light blue eyes looked alarmed.
 
She was new to the PaLargio and if Reno
didn’t want to lose her management expertise before he even fully acquired it,
he knew he had to calm down.

He looked back at his two managers.
 
“I’ll be back,” he said and then began
walking away.

“So what you want me to do now, Ree?”
Dirty asked him.
 

Reno gave his brother-in-law a look that made
Dirty throw up his hands.
 

“Just asking,” he said, as Reno kept on
walking.

Cheri looked at Lee.
 
Lee smiled.
 
“You’ll get used to it,” he assured her.

CHAPTER THREE

Reno stepped onto his private elevator and made
his way to the PaLargio’s penthouse apartment that he and Trina shared.
 
He leaned against the rail and rubbed his
sore neck.
 
He still had loose ends to
tie up, and would probably work late into the night again, but all he wanted to
do right now was see his wife.
 
The board
of directors had tried his patience one time too many with their mutinous
nonsense, forcing him to give their asses an ultimatum, and Dirty had gotten on
his last nerves on top of that.
 
Not
because
Dirty
was lying.
 
Reno knew Trina could be as stubborn as she
wanted to be, and there was no doubt in his mind that she made Dirty stop her
at Boyzie’s, just as
Dirty
said.
 

But that didn’t lessen his anger.
 
Tonight was their last night in Vegas before
moving to what he hoped would be a less dramatic life in Crane, and he didn’t
want that
last day bad luck
syndrome
to afflict them.
 
He read about it all
the time.
 
Some poor sod work all his
life, and on the day of his retirement he gets shot or dies in a car crash or something
just as terrible happens to him.
 
Reno
didn’t want to take any chances.
 
Although he now realized entrusting Dirty to bring her to him was a
mistake.
 
She would have been in better
hands if a two year old had been her guard.

As soon as he entered their suite and walked
toward the bedroom, he could hear the shower running on full blast.
 
He could also see Trina’s clothes strewn all
over the place, leaving a trail from the bedroom to the bathroom.
 
He picked up her panties, smelled that
wonderful scent he knew so well, and headed in the bathroom’s direction.

“I’m in here with you so don’t get all
hysterical on me,” Reno announced as he entered the bathroom.

Trina quickly opened the door of the shower
stall.
 
When she saw it was indeed her
husband, she smiled grandly.
 
“Reno!” she
said.
 
“Dirty said you
were in some big meeting.”